Unfinished Blog #2 : TOP GOLF

Okay this one was a bit weird.

What was supposed to be a humorous take on a "stranger in a strange land" type of scenario (aka me in an upscale driving range golf concept, say no more) totally backfired. And it was all my fault.

The nice people at TopGolf sent me an invite to their media night for the new one that just opened in Marana and after I had a few free drinks in me I posted on social media calling the whole event a "wank".

What made it worse is that someone I know got a job there and she had a talking to by the higher ups asking what my comment was all about and, yeah... Not good.

So let me apologize to everyone at TopGolf for being a turd that night. If it helps I was also on the cusp of being sick so I was edgy going in. But still.

Thing is, I had a totally good time. Now, I am not much of a golfer...hold up, let me rephrase that: I AM NOT A GOLFER!, so getting the chance to hang out at a place I would probably not go to voluntarily was really cool. The place is huge. Three levels of bars, driving ranges, restaurants, etc - TopGolf is set up to be a destination for corporate events, parties and general sporty mirth. Oh and is equipped with like 500 humongous 3D plasma screens. Again, not my scene but it is for a lot of people who got the cash.

The food was really tasty. We got to sample rare prime rib, charcuterie boards, cheesy meatballs, amouse bouche bites and dessert balls that you get to inject cream into. All of it was good. But this was just media night fare. The regular menu includes chicken and waffle sliders, flatbread pizzas, brisket grilled cheese sandwiches, a kids menu and best of all...tater tots.

How can I insult a place that serves tater tots? Idiot!

Thing is after my gaffe I'm sure I wont be invited back so if I want to eat that food I'm going to have to go in incognito and, sigh, pay for it myself. Oh the humanity!

But I deserve it. What I should have done is just added an S to that word and the whole thing would have been 'swank'. Then things wouldn't have gotten sticky. Or at least as sticky.

Not to mention but we also got free water bottles as we exited. I insult a place after drinking and eating on their tab alongside getting a gift? C'mon man.

For all my smarts, sometimes I am just not that bright.

Anyway, that said here are the pics I took from the media event and I'm sure you'll get an idea of what you are in store for when you visit TopGolf.

Oh and I  removed all of the posts once I got word that the wank hit the fan. So...we/I got that going for us/me.

Cheers!

Spiffy

Can't go wrong with a meat and cheese board

Bacon with a side of sprouts

Bite sized nibbles

There's a lot of balls at this place

You get to inject cream into these balls

Very Metal

S'long Top Golf!

Eating, Drinking and Not Golfing
"Metal" Mark Whittaker
Early December, 2017

Metal Influence:

HIGH ON FIRE

"Fertile Green"

Who Brings a Food Blogger to a Knife Fight?

I totally meant to take more photos but, man, I was having so much fun hanging out with my friends and, well, being a judge that my photo duties kind of took a back seat.

So...apologies for the lack of images.

It happens.

High on fire

The Tucson Knife Fight began in September of this year with 16 local chefs competing for a bodacious trophy, $400 cash and total bragging rights. Think of this as a very long episode of Tucson Chopped where each chef brings a secret ingredient to scare off the other while another unknown ingredient is introduced right before the competition. I was lucky enough to be a judge on the 'final 4' slot where two chefs brought the same secret ingredient (duck hearts), which was pretty funny, and the secret secret ingredient was jackfruit, basically a bigger, spikier version of a mango, and totally sticky too. The competition was really close that night but from the ashes of the semi-finals rose two local kitchen heavyweights to make it to the finale:

Gary Hickey of Charro Steak and Tim Marshall from The Parish.

Oh man...you can cut the tension with a knife.

Huh. I just saw what I did there...

The view from the judges table

Just like the final four the finale was held in the back patio at Martin Drug Co. on Congress. It's really a great space but unlike last time, this event was definitely bigger.

First thing I noticed were all of the flashy DJ lights and lasers and such. Looked like a rock concert or rave rather than a cook off. Plus there was a large screen projecting the action live on the side wall. Very cool. The stage was decidedly higher too putting contestants well above normal head level. They were going all out with this one. I was really impressed.

Not to mention the place was packed, like wall to wall people. So far this was going to be a night to remember...

Chef Mike holding the esteemed trophy

To start things off there was a cocktail competition, ironically enough, between bartenders from The Parish and Charro Steak. While this was going on folks continued to stream in as the two competing chefs began prepping for their big moment. It was at this time that I walked up to the stage to take a place at the judges table.

I was joined by Adam Lehrman from Tucson Foodie, Kate Selby of Edible Baja and, once again, Ben Caballero, executive chef for HUB, which Martin Drug Co. is a part of, whom I judged alongside with for the Final 4.

We were way up there and I kept having to make sure that I didn't slip and careen down the metal stairs because, honestly, we were all drinking and I didn't want to look like a total amateur chump in front of a full house.

But, as doing events such as this before, I began to feel cool so maybe taking a head plunge down would calm my ego just a tad.

Although I'm glad I didn't tumble. We were really high up and those stairs looked sharp.

Chef Gary in full action

Before we knew it the competition was underway. The unfortunate secret ingredient was taro root, which is a root vegetable and kind of tough to deal with. Another culinary monkey wrench was the use of Pate a Choux which is a fluffy dough usually used to make eclairs or beignets.

This is going to be tricky.

Huge cut of meat, cooked perfectly

With all of the lights flashing and host Matt Russell of On The Menu, Live! talking in his usual fast candor, when dishes started to arrive on the table I kind of couldn't hear, or see, what was in them (obviously taro root and Pate a Choux) although I do recall a gnocchi dish where the Pate a Choux stood in for the usual potato. The Pate a Choux was really soft but the sauce and other components were very tasty. I thought the dish worked fairly well.

For me, when I judge, its usually very close as far as scoring is concerned. Unless, of course, something blows my mind or something really sucks. Not going to give anything away but when I did the Margarita Competition there was one drink that was so foul that I gave it my first 1 out of 10. Ugh. It was gross and served warm. C'mon now.

Here though, my scoring was pretty darn close. That is until Gary Hickey brought out this pho platter that totally won me over. It was stunning. In the short amount of time that he had Gary pulled out one of the most flavorful dishes I have ever had in a culinary competition. Tim did great with a huge steak but the taro root was a bit buried. That was my only complaint.

After three or four dishes each we all had our fill, we tallied the votes and one winner was announced.

Who would it be?

This is going to be a close one.

Gnocchi out of Pate a Choux dough? Awesome!

And the winner was...

Gary Hickey of Charro Steak!

Tim gave a great performance and delivered delicious delights but Gary took the grand prize. That pho dish though. Ugh. So good.

Everything, all of it...so good.

Thanks again for letting me judge yet another amazing culinary competition and, hey!, keep 'em coming. If you need a food dork like me on your panel I am that guy.

Looking forward to the next big competition.

Bring it on!

Cheers...

And the winner is...

Eating, Drinking & Judging
"Metal" Mark Whittaker
Why is it still hot out...it's November!, 2017

Metal Influence:

IRON MAIDEN

"Flash of the Blade"

Feeling At Home In The Shish Kebab House

Believe it or not it actually gets cold here in Tucson.

No, really.

The weather stream here in the Sonoran southwest can be pretty extreme. Like just a month ago we were in the 100s then, boom!, before you know it we are wearing jackets and turning on the heat at night. It can really be that quick of a temperature change. Where once our garden was suffering because of the beating heat and intense stare from the sun, a few weeks later we have to cover up the plants because of a freeze warning. It's pretty crazy.

It can even snow in Tucson.

No, really.

One of the first winters here since moving from California it actually snowed a bit in midtown Tucson and we made tiny snow people in the courtyard of our home with our then neighbors. That was like ten years ago and its has only flurried a few times since then. But, still!

It snowed.

Not that this day that we are blogging about now was anywhere near a wintery wonderland but...well, it was a lil' chilly.

So, there's that.

Come on in

The temperature of this particular day was probably somewhere in the high 50s or low 60s but because of the piercing wind it felt much colder than that. Plus it was really overcast. The usual blue sky was blanketed in a thick gray screen which doesn't happen a lot here. Late autumn/early winter was definitely upon us in the Old Pueblo and we needed to warm up a bit.

Finding ourselves near the Park Place mall on Broadway (for no real particular reason, we were just there, not shopping just...there) we took to our phones to see what we could find lunch wise that didn't come in food court form or some mega chain glop. Luckily we hit pay dirt.

Tasty tasty pay dirt.

Can we have some salad with our feta please?

The Shish Kebab House is a place we have been meaning to try out for quite some time and fortune smiled on us seeing as we are rarely in that neck of the woods. Craving some hearty grub and a spot to chill out in away from the chill, we walked into the little restaurant in a strip mall bookended by pizza joints to see what we could see. And eat. That was the most important part.

We were really hungry. Hopefully Shish Kebab House would not disappoint.

Happily, it totally did not.

Kafta Be Seyneyiah be amazing

Hate to use this word but, The Shish Kebab House is cute. Its cute! Just a few tables lining the length of the place with a bar prominent in the entrance, with a look and feel of an Arabic cafe, we took a seat near the window so we could stare out at the midafternoon gloom and gawk at people entering a pizza colossus with a roller coaster inside as we dined.

Wait. Did we make the wrong decision? Pizza AND a roller coaster? Oh man, we should really...

Oh. Nevermind. There's a kid's party going on and dads in golf shirts are hitting the Bud Lite pretty hard.

No, we're good. We're happy here.

Whew...that was a close one.

Gyros about to go down

We got the gyro platter, some salads and something called kafta be seyneyiah which is a Jordanian dish made with beef, lamb, potatoes and tomatoes. Sure. let's give it a whirl.

Yeah. It was incredible.

First off, the plates are huge. Not just the plates, but the food atop them. Heaping mounds of delicious seasoned meat, steaming and sizzling among the holiday shoppers wrapped up like Eskimos...but with cargo shorts. All of it succulent and divine.

We really wanted to try a traditional dish from Jordan called oozie (mainly because its called oozie) but we weren't in the mood for pine nuts which that recipe calls for. Made with rice, peas, lamb, beef, chicken, ton of spices and, yes, pine nuts this dish is ginormous and we will definitely try it next time we are here.

Just not a fan of pine nuts. Eh. What are you gonna do?

Shish Kebab House also house makes their humus, falafel and offer a zatar pizza that we are sure will rival their neighbors. All the patrons in the place were silent yet happy, eating and thriving on the savory goodness of very generous portions. The service was friendly, the music was lively and mercifully muted and we left with full bellies and a lot of leftovers.

This is a place everyone should try. Plus there are a lot of vegetarian options so you can bring your picky yet conscious minded friends with you. The flavors and use of spices and ingredients were supple and well honed. The dressing for the salads were herby, bright and fresh over crispy greens and seasonal tomatoes. The meats were cooked to perfection and warmed us from the inside because once we got back outside we needed that Mediterranean influenced heat.

At first you might be put off by some of the prices (you will average about $10-15 per plate) but believe us it is well worth it. We had Shish Kebab House food for lunch and dinner and, yes, we could have had it for breakfast too.

So when you find yourself by the Park Place mall and want an incredible and very satisfying meal, do yourself a favor and avoid all of the corporate crap that tends to bottom feed near shopping areas and step inside Shish Kebab House. Even if it's not cold out it'll wrap you up in a warm pita blanket and give you visions of cous cous dancing in your heads.

Give Santa a shawarma to eat instead of some crappy cookies and milk. He deserves it even though he forgot to bring you at new iPhone thingy you wanted. Maybe next Xmas he will make all of your wishes come true, all because of the power of Shish Kebab House magnificence.

Gyro bless us, feta one...

You need the Shish Kebab House in your life right now

Camera, Typing and Eating
"Metal" Mark Whittaker
Early-ish December, 2016

Metal Influence:

PELICAN

"The Fire In Our Throats Will Beckon The Thaw"

The Garbage Food Chronicles Continues: Meaty Chips and Buttery Burgers Galore

Well Homeskilleteers...it's that time again! Yes, the heralded brief era of the eating season when a mass snack conglomerate gets together with some kind of sick wizard cabal, locking themselves in a chemical tower doing nothing but ingesting heavy psychotropics with roiling cauldrons filled with strange oozing ingredients all with the idea that they can get a potato chip to sort of taste like meat.

We've done it before dear readers and, heck, we are here to do it again!

You're welcome.

Two flavors that go, well...we don't know yet

Last year, let's see, what was it that we ate? Gyro? Yeah, I think gyro was one of them. Eh. It was okay. Remember the truffle fries variety? Neither do we. The Reuben sandwich one was...okay. Pretty weird. But if I recall, the biscuits and gravy flavored mixture seemed to appeal to our taste test vict...uh, participants the most. That lot was fairly enjoyable. But why...and how?

It's an annual right of Tucson Homeskillet passage: They, the royal they, put out a few bags of inspired potato chip ludicrousness around this time of year and we of the brave gasto-fold gather together to eat said aberrant glory all for your well being and entertainment.

Or should we say "edu-tainment"?

I mean, we are learning you proper on the pitfalls of consuming crunchy whims dashed to the thin and sometimes wavy rafters brought to you by the spite mafia science community who, we all are assuming, are in that high tower of deviant creation laughing at us as we actually purchase and then actually eat potato chips that recreate essences of Asian fare, Brazilian steak skewers and a creamy cucumber dill sauce you pour over Greek sandwiches.

Huh. Gyro was last year and now we have tzatziki. You see a pattern here? Is this some kind of Greek conspiracy? Is this...???

Wait. Calm down.

Greek conspiracy? Really dude? Well after eating way too much of these new chips I think the assorted alchemical dustings have gotten to your good pal Metal Mark here. I mean, I haven't been able to taste real food in two days. Everything just has this "sheen" to it; a flaccid gulping flavor mire that coated my tongue and brain only to make my breakfast cereal take on the character of a garlicky chimichurri glop.

How is this possible, you might be asking me and yourself.

Here. Let's get you up onto what went down...

Let's see. Uh...okay and I guess so

In true and traditional form, we gathered some of the usual food suspects at our favorite hangout to try out the new issues of potato chip madness.

This year, here are the four horsemen of the chipocalypse we had to contend with:

Picanha 

(which is a popular Brazilian cut of steak, the rump, grilled or skewered and served with a bright chimichurri sauce...sometimes)

Tikka Masala

(tomato based and heartily seasoned Indian sauce)

Chinese Szechuan Chicken

(no explanation needed...right?)

Greek Tzatziki

(cucumber dill yogurt sauce...but you already knew that)

Sure. Whatever. Kind of odd but...fine. So were the biscuits and gravy and truffle fries chips of last year. So we splayed out the bags on the bar and then we all dove in, ate, deliberated, consulted, confirmed, burped, groaned, nodded our heads in approval or disgust and now here are the results of the big taste test.

You ready?

Here we go: 

Alright...lets do this

First up was the Tikka Masala.

Not bad...but in small quantities

The initial whim on the palate from the Tikka Masala chip was fake tomato sauce. It hits like a spilled bucket of the stuff only condensed into powder form. Then comes the turmeric. Oh boy, the turmeric. Wow. Yeah. It overtook the tomato squirt pretty easily and shifted us into a melange of concocted ingredients. Hints of ginger, some kind of coriander, maybe a whiff of cream even.

It took a while to gather up all of the essences, like a few pulls and chews off of the stuff, but once you wrap your taste buds with this chip you can kind of see, sort of, the direction in which they are heading.

"I don't like it," one random participant noted. "Tastes like bad marinara, only not good."

Um, not too sure what that means but...thanks?

"It's interesting," said another. "I can't see myself eating a whole bag but there is something about it that keeps me coming back. I don't normally like Indian food but this is pretty good."

As a huge, huge fan of Indian food all I can say is that, yeah, it wasn't bad. No, it's not like the Tikka Masala you get from Sher-E-Punjab or India Oven, but it did have elements of the dish and for that we set this one aside as a "Possibly Maybe" in the winner for the taste race.

"Is this what Tikka Masala tastes like? No? Oh, okay. Then I'd have to say I like it enough to not hate it. Does that make sense?"

Sure.

Yeah, eating a whole bag of this stuff would destroy your palate and belly. Plus it was salty. Like really salty. Which is probably what that one guy liked about it. That and he'd been drinking beer since noon.

It was after 5pm when we started this. So...there's that.

Next up was the Chinese Szechuan Chicken.

Some loved this...others not so much

First bite: Whoa. Spice. Yeah. The chili flavor was pretty pronounced and really did its job. Eating more and more just gave it the extra stoke for the mouth fire. Not that we were suffering or anything, no, it's not that hot (and this is a group that can handle the hot) but it did deliver quite a kick.

"I really like this," said my partner in crime She-Ra who adores Chinese food almost as much as I adore Indian cuisine. "It's crazy how it has hints of chicken under the soy and chili flavor."

"This is a weird one," stated another brave eater. "It's almost like eating spicy dirt. I don't get chicken anywhere but I do get a feeling that we shouldn't be eating this."

"Tastes like pure chemicals," said another.

"You know, this is pretty good. I wouldn't buy it, ever, but, yeah...I see where they are going with this."

For me I wasn't really a big fan. I totally agreed with the 'spicy dirt' observation. For some reason I also got a distinct chicken flavor but it was over powered by the sizzling tongue punch and the fact that only after eating two different styles of chips my palate was going bye-bye. Chugging water and a cocktail helped but with this kind of witchcraft going on your sinuses began to give way to a swirling cloud of condensed manufactured flavor profiles.

I mean, how long did it take to get this idea down to chip size and format? Most importantly...why? If you like snackin' chips and enjoy Szechuan cuisine, you might be excited to try this one out. For me though? It was kind of just too much. On so many levels.

Okay...on to the next.

Brazilian Picanha.

How did they...how...I mean...this tastes like steak

"Holy crap," someone uttered as they bit into this flavored chip. "That tastes just like steak."

"Oh wow," followed another. "It totally does."

Yep, this is where things got interesting. The Picanha chips had a very distinct meat flavor to it and it was a bit off putting for a second. Once the initial shock of grilled rump steak hitting your senses came to pass the after thought of the chimichurri kind of sank in. Kind of.

"If chimichurri has garlic in it, then, yeah...I taste garlic."

Um. It does.

The chimichurri flavor wasn't conquering by any account, quite the opposite, but sparkles of its essence were experienced here and there. Perhaps it was just the parsley flakes that seemed to dabble on the thinly sliced potato product or the fact that several garlic substitutions were used in the makeup of this salty treat. And, yes, there it was again: Salt.

These chips are very salty.

I mean, sure, most potato chips heavily manufactured like this rely on the salt element to hold the texture and flavor and definitely keep you coming back for more, but this new batch of hellish crunch concoctions have gone to a new level of salty. Along with the fabricated dreamspace of ingredients you might find in a lab result following the embalming of a arachnid sub-demon, these chips fall into a new category of odd, faintly tantalizing and seriously alkaline. So be prepared.

Otherwise, I kind of liked the Picanha. Not bad really.

Finally we have the true divider of favorites: Greek Tzatziki.

On the left, the minority of votes, the right was the consensus 

The last to hit the rounds was the one that either they loved or absolutely abhorred: The Tzatziki.

"Good lord! This tastes like old bathwater, one where grandma was found dead in."

"Whoa, this is really yummy. I like the dill."

"If a refrigerator that hasn't been cleaned since the Reagan administration had a flavor, this would be it."

"Not bad. Not great but...the cucumber flavor is nice."

"Are you kidding me? Get this the fxxk out of my mouth. Disgusting!"

Yep and there you have it. Some loved it while others totally hated it. I was one of them that hated it.

Not getting much tzatziki, rather what I experienced was spoiled milk mixed with acrid powdered vegetable substitutes. This one, the last one, was by far my least favorite. The wavy chip style didn't help either. In fact, it just made hate ridges hold on tighter to the sour mash of fake dill and talc reduced cucumber. Imagine biting into a turned yogurt slab that was left in the lawnmower mulch bag for a week and then experienced freezer burn for no apparent reason at all.

Like that.

"You guys are on crack," said Jana who was eating them by the handful with scoops of ranch dressing to ease it down. "This stuff is awesome."

She's also very pregnant. We just gave her the bag of tzaziki chips.

So, with that, here are the final outcome and results of our taste test!

It's a resounding: (insert shrugging here)

Well, we will say that the tzatziki chips, for us anyway, were at the bottom of the voting tablets. Sorry Jana. It seems that the other three were a toss up and go around with everyone else. There were elements and components of each chip that some liked then some totally despised. But there was one distinct conclusion:

This round of crazy flavored potato chips are most likely created for novelty and not much for absolute enjoyment. I'm sure there are folks out there that think the Chicken Szechuan is the greatest thing since the invention of potato chips and others that are currently brandishing pitchforks and torches and attempting to burn the Lay's factory down to the ground because of such blatant atrocities.

But know this gentle Homeskillet reader: We had a lot of fun eating and trying out these various curiosities for the tongue and tummy. They amused, aroused and even started a fight or two, but all in all a good time was had by everyone that participated.

Would we buy these random flavored chips again?

Absolutely not.

Now it's up to you. Try 'em out, or don't, be brave and above all be open minded and keep your palate sharp and tongue relatively protected.

Oh, and have a glass of water nearby at all times. Did we mention the saltiness of them all? Yeah we did.

Good luck...

Metal Mark's choice....uh...these? I guess?

BONUS FOOD ROUND!

As if eating loads of exotically enhanced potato chips weren't enough, some of us went out on a further limb and attempted these two new menu items from a fast food juggernaut:

The Brewhouse Burger and the Buttery Jack

Why you may ask? Because...it's what we do. Plus we were pretty lit from the amount of booze we consumed from trying all of those chips that we ended up in the drive-thru after seeing commercials for these new burger options.

So a recent trend in fast food burgers is the "buttery" variety. Down home eateries have been using butter on burgs for quite some time and now it's all over the place it seems. Mind you I have had some darn good butter burgers, some even with the compound and herby stuff jammed right into the meat, so trying this style of fast food was an analytical one.

They promise a garlic herb butter on a "gourmet" bun, with bacon and cheese. Since that sounded kind of sad we also added, or at least asked for, lettuce and tomatoes. Well, the late night stoned staff totally forgot the lettuce and tomatoes so what we got was the stripped down style.

Yeah it kind of sucked. Really dry with little to no "butter" flavor. Just meat and reconstituted "bacon" with some kind of drippy white cheese. The idea behind a real butter burger is absolute juiciness and decadent mouth feel viscosity. This burger had none of that. Pretty stale, boring and without any of the promise those stupid commercials were promoting.

Basically that's why we wanted to try these sandwiches, those freakin' commercials. They make crappy fast food burgers look like a meaty slice of heaven. Getting liquored up and eating bizarre potato chips, which somehow fused our cerebellums making us hapless victims to the horrid advertising industry, subliminally got to us and made us order at the drive thru thinking we were going to get some amazing food fare. Yeah...no. Blame the booze and the potato chips. That's what I did.

Next we sampled the Brewhouse Burger. Again, the commercials were not only kind of funny but spotlighted the sandwich in a way that tilted the taste buds and brain into thinking you're getting a hand crafted burger oozing with porter ale cheese, "pub sauce", sauteed onions, more bacon on a "artisan" seeded bun. Sounds kind of awesome right?

Yeah it was okay.

Much better than the butter burger, this one actually had some flavor and texture to it and, yes, this time they included the lettuce and tomato. Is it the best burger we have ever had? Oh heeeeeeellz no. But for a fast food late night creff burger it wasn't terrible. Would we get it again? Maybe. Depending on how much alcohol is in our system and if you are buying. But good on the fast food chain into trying to step up their game. Perhaps it was the bong hit night crew that screwed it up but, we highly doubt it. Everything in those stores have specific and detailed "spec" sheets and all they have to do is assemble them and then throw them in a bag. Still though, if we were you we'd totally skip that butter burger and give a whirl on the brewhouse option. That is, if you want.

Honestly there are way too many burger joints in Tucson that absolutely slay corporate chains and for that we advise you to visit them and get a real honest handmade chef inspired burger. Please.

Thing is, most of those places don't have a drive thru or are open that late. So there's that.

Did I mention the drinking and strange potato chip chemicals invading our decision making processes?  Yeah. Sorry about that.

Cheers!



Camera, Typing and a Bit of Suffering
"Metal" Mark Whittaker
The Third Week in August, 2016

Metal Influence:  

NAPALM DEATH

"Scum"

Vegan "Burgers" That Taste Just Like Beef? Oh We Gotta Try This...

It's summer. The 4th of July is upon us. Other than watching the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating contest (go Matt Stonie!), what is more American that firing up the grill and cooking up a bunch of burgs 'n dogs for the kids, your neighbors, the gram and gramps and that one weird guy that says he lives near you but only shows up when you're cooking out, all yelling "Hey, smells good!" while wearing some loud Acapulco shirt and cradling a 12er of Hamms under his pit as he crashes your shindig.

We of the Tucson Homeskillet fold love and honor this tradition just like handing out candy at Halloween, roasting a turkey all day for Thanksgiving or drinking to excess during the holiday season. It's kind of what we do. But, you know what? We're a bit bored of tradition and thought it might be fun to swing things up a notch just to see what the results could be and hopefully make us appreciate the tried and true custom of burning meat in the summer heat.

So what are we doing to do this time around?

Kids...we going vegan.

Alright...let's do this

Gasp! Shock! Horror!

No no, chill Homeskilleteers. We got you on this one.

See there is a new product out there by a company called Beyond Meat and they apparently have "beef" products that are 100% plant based that claim to taste just like the real animal thing. It's been circulating 'round the culinary belly for a spell and some of our veggie friends swear by this stuff.

Thing is, Beyond Meat is about to drop a major food bomb on us omnivores. Pretty soon, in select fancy grocery stores and then eventually in regular ol' shops once the idea takes off, they are going to sell something called the Beyond Burger.


The Beyond Burger is full on vegan "ground beef", no animal products of any kind and it will be sold in your grocers meat section. That's right, vegan meat sold next to real meat.


Bold right? Yeah, we like that.

Here's the selling point: the Beyond Burger is said to cook, smell, juice and taste just like real beef. No, really. We've been watching some of the bigger food sites get advanced samples of the stuff and all of them have said they were blown away by how good it is. For real...juices like real meat? How...how is that even possible?

Well, we're going to have to wait on that one but for now we wanted to try a few of their other products to see if it lives up to their own hype.

Well, we almost went vegan (yes that's real cheese)

So we went to a local Co-Op and got ourselves two items from Beyond Meat; the Beast Burger and some beef crumbles served in a handy lil' pouch. The idea was to see if they could stand the Homeskillet taste test for two of our favorite foods: burgers and tacos.

We just had to do it. We're dumb/awesome like that.

First up was the Beast Burger.

Hot grill skillet to get things going

Unlike the Beyond Burger, which will be sold along regular ground beef in the refrigerated section (as mentioned before), these products are frozen. Whatever. Like we said, veg pals stand by this business like no other, even if they haven't had real meat in decades.

So, yeah...how do you know what real meat tastes like? You don't! We eat meat, like, all the time and we know how beef is supposed to feel, smell like and taste. You've been grubbing on leaves and bark and mulch since the Clinton administration, so what do you have to compare to what "real meat" really does to your tongue and gut? This is dumb. We out. Tucson Homeskillet OUT!

Shhh....calm down, calm down. No need to freak out. We're just hungry so let's get this challenge started shall we?

Sheesh.

It sorta looks like meat

The Beast Burger didn't look to bad. Honestly, it looks like a real frozen beef patty. So we took it out of the plastic jacket, oiled up a hot grill pan and tossed it in.

Kinda smells like meat

First up was the sizzle. Yeah, the "burger" had a great sizzle to it, just like for real meat. That impressed us right off the pan handle. It smelled good too while it cooked.

So far, not too shabby vegan food item.

That aint meat

One concern was the fact that the patties had grill marks already on them. So...are they pre-cooked or what? We followed the easy instructions on the box but nowhere did it say they were already griddled then flash frozen and sealed up.

Whatever.

After a few minutes on each side, it was time to assemble our sandwich.

But it sizzles and smells (kinda) like meat

We wanted this one to be pretty special so we made sure the toppings and accessories for the burger were legit.

We topped the burgers with our homemade pickles and some bibb lettuce from our garden along with Tucson farmed tomatoes and onion, nice cheese from a local deli (you didn't expect us to go full vegan here did you, that noise is rough so we broke down and added some deep melty Swiss) and a brioche bun from a nearby bakery. It was so on!

Feeling frisky we also made a quick aioli, spread some on either side of the lightly toasted bread and put it all together.

Here is the result:

Sorry, but the sandwich building game was on point

Check the skills right? Anyway, enough of the self back patting on our sandwich building prowess, how did it taste?

You know what? Really good. Probably not at the level that the Beyond Burger is going to be but, honestly, if we went to a vegan cookout (blerf!) and this is what they were serving up, we'd be totally stoked about it. Seriously.

The patty had a bit of a grainy feel to it and the chew was a little granular but overall we were happy to be eating a plant assembled "beef" burger. It was straight up tasty.

Keep this in mind for your veggie friends that you invite over for your next cookout. The heartiness of the patty will surely hold up to the strains of a hot grill on a hot 4th of July afternoon. And because of the success of the Beast Burger we are now really stoked to try the Beyond Burger.

Now that is something to look forward to, meat eater or not.

Strangely delicious, oddly satisfying

Alright then. First challenge down and so we move on to the next.

Let's make some tacos with this lot:

Okee dokee, let's see what you got non-beef beefy crumbles

We live in Tucson. Tucson has some of the best food around, especially Mexican fare. We have had our share of tacos. Oh yes, a good fair share. So we just couldn't stop with a burger test could we? No. If beyond Meat makes a "beefy" crumble, we thought it best to see if it stood up to a Tucson taco challenge.

It's our job. It's...what we do.

Metal Mark's super secret taco seasoning that you can find anywhere on the internet

First off was to get some good supplies from one of our favorite local shops, Carniceria La Noria, on 1st Avenue and Prince. All of their salsas are handmade, as are their tortillas, and we also picked up a bag of their freshly grated cheese. Again, we just can't go completely vegan here. The use of cheese is just oh so too tempting.

Paired that with Metal Mark's secret taco seasoning (one where he just mixes different recipes found online and hopes that it comes out okay...this time it worked!) and a fresh pepper and lettuce from the garden, this round of the Beyond Meat taste test proved to be interesting and hopefully delicious.  

Grow your own and buy local

We greased up a hot grill pan, yes the same we used for the burgers, and tossed in the "beef" crumbles then slowly mixed in the taco seasoning.

Once again, the 100% plant based food alchemy was making sounds just like a good grind of real meat would whilst cooking away on the stove top. Crazy. As we stirred in the seasoning we noticed that the product lacked a bit of tenderness and was a fairly dry. To help this we added more oil and a bit of water to let it steam in and hoped that the combo of the two would work out.

Maybe you like your taco meat to be a bit arid but us Homeskillet choads like it mega moist and bursting with flavor. Again, we live in Tucson. Our tastebuds are competing with some incredible carne asada and beef tacos out there.

But the extra oil and water seemed to help.

And Metal Mark's seasoning. Don't forget about that...

Lookin' and smellin' pretty good

Much like the burger "meat", the "beefy" crumbles were already sort of cooked and all we had to do was heat it up, season it up and bring it to life.

Once the temperature and consistency of the vegan beef was up to snuff, we assembled the tacos to our liking and dug in.

Honestly, we were glad we added a bunch of seasoning to the "meat" because without it we thought that it really wouldn't stand much of a chance. That said, with the other components, our Beyond Meat tacos were really tasty. Having had some of the greatest beef tacos that southern Arizona has to offer and then some, our tongue was used to that authentic flavor and character, so the countless ingredients that make up the lab tested food product was a little odd. But it definitely was not the worst vegan meat we have tried...far from it! As a matter of fact, it was probably the best, but being good omnivores and sporting a bit of a taco obsession, it just took some getting used to.

After a couple of bites though, we didn't even notice that we were eating Franken-beef. In fact, we were kind of getting into it.

Good job Beyond Meat. You pretty much have us convinced.

Yep, those are tacos

The best part is is that you can get this stuff at a lot of local grocery stores, even big box ones. But we encourage you to get it from local/Arizona vendors such as the Food Conspiracy Co-Op, Natural Grocers and Bashas. Okay, so they're not like super super local and small biz but...it's the best we can do here. C'mon. We're trying our best!

Point is, our mouths are already starting to drool and our stomachs are beginning to rumble just thinking about the Beyond Burger. If these already available products at most decent shops can make us not notice the fact that we were eating non-meat, we can't even fathom what the new stuff is going to be like. But that's another Homeskillet article all together.

Thanks again Beyond Meat! You made believers out of us.

But we're still not going to go vegan. Or even vegetarian. Oh no.

I mean, have you had the beef tongue (de lengua) tacos at La Fresita? Yeah. That's why.

Cheers!

Good stuff, now you give it a try

Camera, Typing and Eating
"Metal" Mark Whittaker
First Day Of July, 2016

Metal Influence:

SORCERER